Horus (WOD)
Horus, known among mortals as one of the chief deities of Ancient Egypt, features prominently in the World of Darkness as an enemy of the Antediluvian Set and a champion of his father Osiris' values and the tenets of Ma'at. He was the leader of the Shemsu-Heru before the Sixth Maelstrom destroyed the Dark Kingdom of Sand and the Amenti were created. Biography The story of Horus is recorded in the Isis Fragments, which are the fundamental texts of the Cult of Isis. Horus was the child of Isis and Osiris, before Osiris was Embraced by Typhon and became a vampire. Still a child at the time, Isis and Horus had to flee when Set returned from the Second City to claim his birthright as the pharaoh of Egypt, while they were aided by Set's renegade childer Wadjet (who never appears in the records of the Followers of Set). The mummy Mestha, who was present at the time, claims that Set chose this moment because Osiris was weakened from a struggle against hyena-men, possibly referring to the Ajaba and their watch over Africa. When Isis managed to reclaim her husband's body, Set captured her and Horus and imprisoned the two in his palace at Ombos, while tearing Osiris body apart so that his blood mingled with the sands, the reason Isis states that the Shroud in Egypt is so particular thin. In order to hurt his sister, Set fell back to torturing Horus by plucking out his right eye and extracting his lifeforce with it, reducing the young Horus to a near catatonic state that needed constant care from his mother's magic. The pair managed to escape with the aid of a loyal officer, who secretly transferred them to the hut of his father Mestha. Isis and Nephthys, with the aid of the surviving Children of Osiris and the enigmatic figures Anubis and Thoth, constructed the Spell of Life and brought Osiris to life. The God-King had been instructed by Anubis how to save Horus from his wound, but first, the boy needed to die. They used Mestha, their host, as a willing test subject and when the old farmer managed to return, they used the Spell on Horus. In this moment, Set arrived and clashed with his siblings. He killed Nephthys and battled Osiris, who was aided by various shape-shifters who had observed Set's vile deeds and chose to act against his tyranny. Yet in the end, the Antediluvian was again victorious, consuming his brother's corporal form with magical fire and prepared to kill Isis. It was then that Horus rose first and defiantly stood against his uncle, slashing him with a great knife repeatedly until he emasculated him and released his eye from his grasp. Using the time bought by Horus, Isis and Mestha fled to the Silent Striders, who granted them shelter, while taking Horus body with them. When Horus rejoined his mother, he had reclaimed his ba and stood before Isis as a worthy chieftain, a general in the war against Apep, the demonic serpent. Horus swore an oath of eternal war against Set and rallied allies alongside him that would later form the Osirian League. In time, the struggle between Set, Osiris and Horus would be deified by the population, with Horus sharing many attributes of the falcon-headed sun god Ra. Both sides would wage a silent war of immense proportions to control the leadership of Egypt, but Horus suffered setbacks when he was forced to enter the death-cycle, while Set and his childer could act relatively unhindered by time. Horus resided in his secret crypt in Sinai and plotted the war effort against the get of his uncle. In this time, Horus learned of the insidious influence of vampires in general and widened his vendetta to include every other Clan, except for the Children of Osiris. When the Shemsu-Heru were created to aid Horus in his war, the Cult of Isis slowly fell to corruption, resulting in the formation of the Bane rite and the birth of the Apepnu. Horus himself, obsessed with vengeance, was not an easy person to follow either, and the first of his disciples, named Ishmael, turned against him after mere three hundred years of constant battle, doubting the veracity of Horus' vendetta. Faced with the numerous occupations of Egypt, and the influx of foreign supernaturals following Alexander the Great, Horus came to realize how limited his struggle had been. The war against Set was yet one facet in the eternal conflict between Isfret and Ma'at, Apophis and Ra. Seeing the folly of resuming a fight lifetime after lifetime, he issued the Diaspora in 132, creating the Wat Hor as a guideline for his loyal followers and released them to fight Apophis in their own way. He decreed that Alexandria would act as a central port to the Shemsu-Heru and left with a group of his most loyal disciples, constructing a hidden tomb in the Alps of modern Switzerland, near the mortal city of Geneva. In the following centuries, Horus acted to keep the Shemsu-Heru organized, working against vampires and foiling the plans of the Setites. Traveling across Europe, he witnessed the decline of Rome and Constantinople, leaving much of the formal administration of the Undying to his Viziers. He retained his hatred against Cainites, as evidenced on his appearance in London, where he battled the local prince, Mithras. With the aid of various spirits, he protected his residence from unwanted attention. After World War II, he briefly entered the death-cycle, only to return with an urgency unseen before. Many Shemsu-Heru took this as a sign of the impending End Times and thus, were not really surprised when the Dja-ahk struck in 1999. Horus survived the razing of Amenti, returning as the first of the Imkhu. No longer an active figure in the war against Apophis, he took up residence in Edfu in an old temple of his, instructing young Amenti in their powers and seeking a way to destroy the persistent brood of Set. He also redirects archaeologists from excavating too much, lest they disturb dark spirits that were bound away. Rumors among the Reborn alos tell that Horus has become a semi-divine creature with the head of a falcon and mortal worshippers have congregated around Edfu to revere him. Horus is also the only active person to know the location of the ruins of the Second City and the complete Spell of Life. A Different View According to the Followers of Set, Horus is the last Aeon to remain in the material world, the overseer of the spiritual dungeon that is reality. Most of their texts, however, focus on Ra and Osiris, enemies that Set had defeated in one way or the other. More skeptical members of the Clan, like the historian Manetho, point to temples at were dedicated to both Horus and Set and ask what really caused the feud that has lasted for so long. Titles Not a humble person to begin with, Horus has a multitude of titles used on occasion. They include: * Her-nedi-tef-ef * The Returned King * The Avenging Son * The One-Eyed King * The Living Pharaoh * First-Among-Reborn * The Avenger References * * * Category:Mummy: The Resurrection character Category:Vampire: The Masquerade character Category:World of Darkness characters